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This page gives
texts from Alastair McIntosh's
Thought for the Day contributions to BBC
Radio Scotland
(it also gives
instructions for Listen Again if you're looking for somebody else's Thought)
Scheduled for me during 1st half 2009: Thur 26 Mar, Thur 9 Apr, Thur 16 Apr,
Tue 26 May - s.t.c.
If you want to print a specific
piece from the texts below without having to print everything on this long
page, I suggest you select and copy the required text and either "print
selection" or paste it into your word processor and print from there. BBC Radio Scotland programmes
can be listened to online for up to a week after the broadcast. If you want
to hear the actual words as spoken, or if you've accidentally landed on my
website while looking for somebody else's Thought for the Day, here's how to go about
hearing them. Go to the Good Morning Scotland
website. As of July 2008 it was located at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hf7. That will give you a listing
of episodes of Good Morning Scotland with "listen again" available for the
most recent. Each day's programme will usually be posted up around 9.15 am,
but sometimes it's a bit later. Click on the date of the programme you want
and, when it opens, click on "listen". If your computer works
like mine, your screen should then open up the BBC's iPlayer Radio
Console. Assuming your computer's sound is turned on, you should, after
a few moments, hear the programme start playing (usually with music
initially) from just before 6 am. Since Thought for the Day is usually on at
about 7.22 am, move the slide at the bottom towards the right until the console shows that
you're 1.22 hours into the programme. You should find Thought for the Day
round about there. If you get a current affairs report, you've maybe not
gone far enough. If you're getting the sports report, you've gone too far.
Enjoy!
39. 26
May 2009 - "Poacher's Pilgrimage" and the Hebridean Sabbath
38.
16 April 2009 - Liberation theology and
Cathy McCormack of Easterhouse
37. 9 April 2009 - "Prosperity Without Growth?"
and the Provost of Aberdeenshire's car
36. 26 March 2009 - Usury prohibition and the Credit
Crunch
35.
22 October 2008 - Consumerism, climate and the economic meltdown [Listen
to it here]
34.
29 July 2008 - Bob Crampsey's obituary and life as a work of art
33.
22 July 2008 - Marriage: humanist or spiritual?
32. 1
July 2008 - Old age pension provision
31.
16 May 2008 - Crofting and a culture of honesty
30.
8 May 2008 - The Burmese Cyclone, Climate
Change and Consumer Idolatry
29.
17 March 2008 - The Parable of the Northern
Seed [Listen to it
here]
28. 10
March 2008 - Regenerating Scotland's fishing communities [Listen
to it here]
27.
1 February 2008 - God and the
Canadian airline pilot
26.
25 January 2008 - Robert Burns and the 'cruel' taxi fare dodger
25.
27 November 2007 - Scotland's Winter
Festival - St Andrew & St Bride
24. 30
October 2007 - Burma & Ewen Hardie's Protest [Listen
to it here] [Interview
with Ewen]
23.
2 August 2007 - Mobile grocery vans and the sacrament of the ordinary
22.
20 July 2007 - BBC competitions, Tolstoy
and the "little white lie"
21. 12
June 2007 - Eigg's Celebration & Scottish Land Reform [listen
to it here]
20.
30 May 2007 - The Pope and Madeleine McCann
[listen to it here]
19.
24 May 2007 - Climate change, Lafarge, and the FTSE4Good environmental index
18.
17 May 2007 - Orangemen, discernment & Scotland's
new consensual politics [listen
to it here]
17. 1
December 2006 - Ulster, Scotland & the ocean superhighway
16. 13
November 2006 - Remembrance Day and the opening heart
15. 25
September 2006 - St Peter, the Devil, and integrity
14. 5
September 2006 - Afghanistan deaths and spirituality of community
13. 1
August 2006 - Dom Helda Camara's 'spiral of violence' and the Middle East
12. 25
July 2006 - Hearing
loss and hearing aids
11. 18
July 2006 - Middle
East crisis and urban conflict
10. 30
June 2006 - Football and identity
9. 8
May 2006 - Conflict as normal
8. 24
March 2006 - Norman Kember's release from Iraq
7, 10
February 2006 - History in Scottish schools
6. 3
February 2006 - Mrs Coretta Scott King
5. 29 December 2005
- Good luck; bad luck?
4. 10
November 2005 - Colin Macleod's posthumous Thought for the Day
3. 12
October 2005 - Spirituality and the Pakistan quake
2. 29
September 2005 - Multiculturalism & the dream job
1. 31
August 2005 - The New Orleans hurricane
Thought for the Day – c. 0720,
26 May 2009 -
BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning,
I’ve just come back from a 12 day
walk in the Hebrides – what I jokingly called a “poacher’s pilgrimage” on
account of the fishing rod with which I traversed mountain passes and remote
glens.
The less said about the fishing the
better, but I had a rich time exploring ancient sheilings on the moors, drinking
from long-since venerated wells, and pausing at both pre-Reformation and modern
Presbyterian centres of worship that stretch from the southern tip of Harris to
the Butt of Lewis.
Friend and stranger alike invited me
into their homes. Never would I leave without a full belly or a newly laid
clutch of eggs. Not having seen the newspapers I’d ask what was fresh. The
General Assembly was dominating national news, but the burning local issue was
the renewed threat of Sabbath ferry sailings to Stornoway.
While opinions are sharply divided, a
great many people, including the local authority, are staunchly opposed. It’s a
marker of cultural identity as well as a religious issue; one that ought not to
be imposed from afar, but decided through the settled will of the local
community.
Personally I’m not a rigid
Sabbatarian, yet having been raised on Lewis I do find myself touched by some of
what radiates from the Hebridean lighthouse. As a self-employed writer and
academic I’ve got choice over my use of time. But the concern on Lewis is for
the impact that delivery lorry and tourist arrivals would have on low paid
service workers. For these, not having to work on Sundays is a form of
employment protection that safeguards family and community life.
We live in strange times, and since
the credit crunch meltdown many are starting to question the 24/7 hubris of
economic life. And so, who knows. Could it be that the Hebridean Sabbath is
actually a treasure of cultural diversity that Scotland should cherish?
Maybe there’s a baby in that
bathwater at risk of being thrown out – and He’s not just looking back, but
pointing forwards.
Thought for the Day – c. 0720, 16 April 2009 -
BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning,
As we take stock of the
mind-boggling sums being spent on bailing out the nation’s economy, many
must be wondering who’s going to pay. Will it be those who stuffed their
pockets in the boomtime years? Or might the axe fall cruelly on the poor?
That question will be with me
this evening when I go to an event in Easterhouse in Glasgow. An old friend,
the poverty campaigner Cathy McCormack, is launching her autobiography. It’s
called “The Wee Yellow Butterfly,”* and the title refers to how she once
broke down in a community workshop.
She’d been told to imagine being
a caterpillar, transforming into a butterfly. But Cathy thought: “Butterfly?
What chance had I to become a butterfly?”
She’d spent twenty years fighting
official indifference about damp and mould-ridden housing in her community.
But finally her work achieved recognition and she was sent on a fact-finding
visit to Nicaragua.
It was here that she became
inspired by liberation theology, including the idea that God is on the side
of the poor – but God has been misrepresented by the rich to keep the poor
down - while the wealth gets creamed off.
We’re talking here of Biblical
passages about which few sermons are preached, like in Luke 6, where Jesus
says: “Woe to you who are rich … for you have had your comfort.” Or as Islam
also puts it: “He who eats and drinks whilst his brother goes hungry is not
one of us.”**
But far from writing off the
rich, liberation theology is also about their humanity … found by entering
into solidarity with the poor. As Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Peruvian father of
the movement who spoke in Stirling in 1995 has said: “to liberate” means,
to give life.
* Cathy McCormack with Marian
Pallister, The Wee Yellow Butterfly, Argyll Publishing, Glendaruel,
£7.99 - the launch is at 7pm in The Bridge, 1000 Westerhouse Road,
Easterhouse, G34 9JW, and I'd be pretty sure it's open to the public.
** Hadith of al-Bukhari (pbuh).
Thought for the Day – c. 0720, 9 April 2009 -
BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning,
I’ve just read a remarkable new
report with the challenging heading of
Prosperity Without Growth?. It’s on the website of the UK government’s
Sustainable Development Commission and argues that more and more economic
expansion cannot fix the problems of the world.
According to the economists who wrote
it, ‘The myth of growth has failed us.’ Instead of cultivating human qualities
like trust, love, and community, we’ve tried to buy the stairway to Heaven.
Consumerism’s therefore at the cutting edge of both the short-term credit crunch
and the long-term crunch of climate change.
The world economy would need to
expand by fifteen times for everybody to catch up on our level of materialism by
2050. But the Earth already can’t afford the profligacy of the rich, so what can
we do? And how can the poor at home and abroad get their fair share?
That’s where this week saw
heart-warming inspiration from Provost Bill Howatson of Aberdeenshire Council.
Instead of choosing to be driven on official duties in a Jaguar, a Bentley, or a
Daimler, he’s opted for a fifty-five-miles-to-the-gallon Skoda.
Asked if the status loss bothered
him, he replied that he was, “pleased to be seen in an environmentally friendly
car that will be more economical to run and cheaper to purchase. It reflects the vision
of the council.”
And there’s the nub. A Biblical
proverb reminds us that, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The
vision needed to tackle consumerism is voluntary simplicity like that taken on
here
by Provost Howatson.
What’s needed now is a mindset shift
for us all. We need to drop our admiration of the grandiose and maybe even
quietly start seeing fancy status symbols as badges of shame and insecurity.
The Prosperity Without Growth?
report calls for “underlying human values” and a seeking of “the common good”.
When I get to see the Aberdeenshire provost’s new car, that’s what I’ll be admiring.
Thought for the Day – c. 0720, 26 March 2009 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning,
Yesterday vandals attacked the home
of Sir Fred Goodwin, former boss of the Royal Bank and meanwhile, caught in an
economic tidal wave, the Dunfermline Building Society is having to reach out for
a government lifeline.
These two institutions have a
different basis. The Royal Bank exists to maximise profit for shareholders. The
Dunfermline, on the other hand, is a mutual society. It seeks no profit beyond
running costs to link up savers and borrowers.
Put like that it’s easy to point the
finger at banks like the Royal and Fred the Shred for having played casino with
our money. But let’s remember, most people never questioned matters when their
house prices and pension portfolios kept rising. Silence was the voice of
complicity.
Money works only if we have
confidence in it. That word, confidence, comes from the Latin, con-fidere,
meaning “to have faith together.” The canonisation of greed undermines that
faith. It worships a false god that ultimately betrays our society.
All three of the Abrahamic religions
accept money’s primary role of being an IOU system, but they challenge its
secondary role of making money out of money by charging compound interest. Today
usury usually means excessive interest, but originally it meant any form
of return that insulated the lender from the welfare of the borrower.
Jewish law banned usury within its
own community. Jesus urged lending without the expectation of getting a return.
And Islam condemns the charging of interest because, in the words of the Qu’ran,
it “devour[s] men’s substance wrongfully.” *
Next month the G20 leaders of the
world meet in London. Will they simply re-spin the casino economy’s roulette
wheel? Or might they consider a more mutualist basis for wellbeing? We shall be
watching, for where a politician’s heart is, so our money follows.
* Scriptural references: Exodus
22:25; Luke 6:35; Qu’ran 4:161. For background on the history of usury
prohibition see my paper with Wayne Visser
here.
Thought for the Day – 0723
22 October 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
[Listen
to it here]
Good Morning
This month has been a critical one in
the history of our nation, one that historians will look back on as a cultural
watershed.
Our faith in money has been shaken
and earlier this week Gordon Brown promised a “central mission” of doing
“whatever it takes” to spend a way out of the economic black hole.
At the same time and almost lost
amongst the economic headlines, the UK Government took a courageous step towards
tackling dangerous climate change. It now matches Scotland’s aspiration by
having raised from 60 percent to 80 percent the target for cutting greenhouse
gas emissions by the year 2050.
But setting targets is the easy bit;
achieving them is harder. And there’s the rub. Both the economic bubble now
bursting and global warming have one driver in common: consumerism. Our
conundrum is that we need more consumption to save the economy, but less to save
the planet.
Spending our way out of a recession
is therefore only a stop-gap measure. It’s methadone for our planetary heroin
addiction.
We simply feed the habit if we think
that today’s problems can be tackled at conventional political, technical or
economic levels. If we’re redefining our “central mission”, we must press
further.
Technical fixes are certainly part of
the solution. But I’d put it to you that the deep work must be this: to learn to
live more abundantly with less, to rekindle community, and to serve fundamental
human need instead of worshiping at the altars of greed.
The crisis of these times is
therefore spiritual. It calls for reconnecting our inner lives with the outer
world - an expansion of consciousness. And that’s an opportunity that we neglect
at our peril, for as I once heard an old Quaker woman say, “It is perilous, to
neglect one’s spiritual life.”
(Click these links for my recent
books on the spirituality of climate change
and community regeneration.)
Thought for the Day – 0723
29 July 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning
It’s the time of year when school
leavers are thinking what to make of their exam results. Yesterday when buying
my morning paper I was talking to a young Scot whose parents came here from
Pakistan and who’s presently wondering how best he can serve the family
business. Is it by helping his Dad from behind the counter, or should he go and
study accountancy so that he can also do the books?
You know what it’s like at that age.
It’s hard to see the wider of picture of what your life might become. Mick
Jagger once said he’d sooner die than still be playing Satisfaction at forty,
but for many of us, the Great Cosmic Conveyer Belt of life long since passed
forty and still hasn’t run into the buffers.
That’s when you start weighing up
where you’re now at in relation to how you saw yourself away back then.
And that’s also what I find so
interesting about obituaries in the newspapers. A good obituary lets you see
somebody’s life as a completed work of art.
Although I live within hearing
distance of Ibrox, I happen to have no interest whatsoever in football. And yet
when I read my paper yesterday I delighted in an obituary for Bob Crampsey,
described as “a gentleman, a scholar … and a Scottish footballing legend.”
Here was a man who had quite clearly
become a priceless work of Scottish art. Here was a role model whose life
combined not just a passion for sport, but also wide-ranging learning, and the
qualities of a thoroughly decent human being.
You know, I don’t believe that
success in life is about what you possess or how much you earn. But I do think
it’s about making choices that allow the unfolding of all-round potential.
That’s what a good Scots education has always aspired towards, that’s the richer
meaning of wealth, and at the end that’s what allows others to look back and
give thanks … for a life fulfilled.
Thought for the Day – 0723
22 July 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Summertime is here, and with it the
season of weddings. Scotland is one of just six countries where humanist
weddings are legally recognised, and figures just out show that these were up by
sixty four percent to seven hundred and ten last year.
Most humanists believe that
rationality should be the factor that determines our human affairs. As such,
they say that we don’t need spirituality, and we can do most decisively without
“God”!
I respect that view, yet I can’t help
wondering if it misses something.
Marriage poses fundamental questions
about what it really means to be in profound relationship with another human
being. You may, like Bertrand Russell, think we’re no more than what he called,
“the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms” … here today and gone
tomorrow.
But what grabs me more is all those
songs about true love being “forever and a day”, or, as Rabbie Burns put it,
lasting “till a’ the seas gang dry … and the rocks melt wi’ the sun!”
These hint that we’re only partly of
the material world. Our greater selves connect beyond space and time, uniting us
as members one of another, like the branches of a tree sprung from a taproot in
eternity.
And so, while I’m glad that Scotland
can honour the rich diversity that includes humanism, I’d also want to say that,
for me, there’s been times when God, or whatever name we want to call it by, has
shone out like a shaft of light through dark clouds.
That leaves me wondering if the poets
might have got it right. It raises the possibility that marriage is not just
about working things through in the material world. One foot for sure belongs in
the here and now. But I believe the other foot reaches out to the source of our
deepest longing, and that’s the point where love meets eternity.
Thought for the Day – 0723
30 June 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
A report from Scottish Widows that
was in the news yesterday reveals that a third of us are not paying sufficient
into pension schemes for a comfortable life after work.
Those saving enough are – wait for it
– most likely to be male, over 50, and earning
at least thirty thousand.
Ever since Thatcherism upped the ante
in privatising the provision for old age I’ve found something profoundly
disturbing about this idea that we can buy future security by placing faith in
Mammon – the god of money.
I happen to have a financial MBA so I
know it’s all very logical. And we nearly all dabble in it to varying degrees.
And when it’s just the way the world’s gone, there may not seem to be much
choice.
But ultimately we have to ask how
best to provide for our security in old age. Do we all have our own little stash
hoarded away? Or do we try to build a social community that accepts being our
neighbour’s keeper?
Why can’t those of us working now
simply pay enough tax to support the present generation of pensioners and then
be looked after in our turn? Why not cut out much of the bloated financial
system? Do we really trust it more than we trust one another?
After all, money is simply the power
to take a bigger slice of the common cake. Globally it’s not going to protect us
from energy shortages or climate change driving up food prices.
Long ago a crazy man called John the
Baptist said, “Whoever has two shirts must share with who has none, and anyone
who has food must do the same.”
And John’s best friend warned against
seeking security in gold and possessions. Both men placed their investments in
the community. And as far as we know, that best friend, whose name was Jesus,
never saved … in a bank.
Thought for the Day – 0723
16 May 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning
On Monday a major report was
published on the future of Scottish crofting. Yesterday Mike Russell, the
environment minister, said that “radical change is needed to reverse years of
decline,” and happily this seems to be a cross-party consensus.
When I leave this studio shortly I’ll
be jumping on a train to Inverness where, this afternoon, the Scottish Crofting
Foundation and the University of the Highlands and Islands will be taking
matters further. They’ll be asking whether crofters merit the same special
cultural status as indigenous peoples elsewhere in the world.
That actually raises a question about
the identities of all Scots. What kind of a people are we, and what values
signify who we are?
Now, I have to travel a lot in my
work, and regular listeners may remember that last week it meant presenting
Thought for the Day from Belfast. I don’t know what it sounded like at your end,
but I can tell you, I wasn’t at my best!
The previous evening I’d left my
Filofax in the Wetherspoons Bar at Glasgow airport. It had nearly a hundred
pounds, credit cards, driving licence, and my diary.
As you might imagine, I didn’t sleep
too well that night, and I could have done without having to set off for the BBC
studio at the crack of dawn.
But to my relief once back at Glasgow
Airport’s lost property office, I found that an honest waiter had done the
decent thing. And I asked the woman behind the desk how often such valuables are
recovered.
“Oh you’d be amazed,” she told me.
“Nearly everything gets handed in. There’s a lot more honest people out there
than you’d imagine.”
And so, back to this afternoon’s
crofting seminar and the question: What kind of a people are we, and what values
do we hold in common?
It’s easy to open the newspapers and
to think that society’s gone to the dogs. But I can tell you, when I got my
Filofax back and learned that such honesty is “normal,” I felt proud of the
values of the Scottish people.
Thought for the Day – 0723 8 May 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning
I’m talking today from the BBC’s
Belfast studio. I’m here to discuss climate change, and whether religion can
help to tackle it.
Later this morning a cross-section of
faith leaders will be sitting down at the invitation of Friends of the Earth in
Northern Ireland.
Even as they gather, the official
death toll from the cyclone in Burma will be rising by the hour. Over 22,000 are
now confirmed dead and the British Ambassador estimates that the final figure
may be nearer 50,000.
We must be careful not to suggest
that the Burmese tragedy was caused by climate change. Natural disasters always
happen. But most informed scientists believe that extreme weather events are
likely to get more frequent because of global warming. It’s the same as heating
a saucepan – the more you turn it up, the more it blows off steam and boils
over.
So what can the world’s religions do
about this? I’ll tell you what I’ll be saying this morning.
Most experts consider that global
warming is mainly caused by human impact on the environment.
The relatively rich trash the planet,
and the poor, living in vulnerable places, are most likely to suffer the
consequences.
That makes climate an ethical issue,
which is why it’s relevant to religion. You see, human impact on the Earth is
driven not just by necessary consumption, but also, by unnecessary
consumerism.
The power of marketing has misled
many people into thinking that fulfilment comes not from who we are, but from
what we have.
In religious language, that’s
idolatry. It pulls us away from life’s chief end and fobs us off with things
that can never last.
That’s what makes climate change a
spiritual issue. We need to balance our outer lives with a rekindled inner life.
It’s not just the outer climate that
needs attention - it’s the inner one too.
Thought
for the Day – 0723 17 Mar 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
[Listen
to it here]
Good Morning
There’s been a lot recently about
Road Equivalent Tariffs that will further subsidise ferries to the Outer
Hebrides. I think it’s wonderful, but it’s expensive, and therefore raises an
old question about give and take between Scotland’s urban centre and its rural
periphery.
One answer to the question struck me
last September. I was at the John Lennon Northern Lights festival in Durness –
Scotland’s most northerly village - where Lennon used to spend family holidays.
In a field by the hotel where the bands
were playing there was an old crofter was making stooks from his harvest of oats. I
watched as loads of people stopped and he generously gave them all the time of
day.
I too paused with a question. Did he
think that the ‘improved’ modern strains are as hardy as the oats we
traditionally grew?
“Not at all,” he replied. “Most
modern varieties are bred in the South. But we used to bring our seed down from
Orkney. That way it worked for our conditions.”
And then he added something. He said:
“We used to say, the seed must move from North to South.”
I walked away feeling like I’d just
been given ‘The Parable of the Northern Seed’!
It’s true - the economic powerhouse
of the Central Belt does subsidise remote parts of rural Scotland.
But then you look at all those
visitors, mainly from the South, and you see that, like John Lennon, they go
back uplifted by the spirit of the place they’ve been to.
As such, the hidden exports of
remote areas – whether in the North or elsewhere - are cultural and spiritual
qualities. Alongside economic wealth, these are what provide social cohesion and
a welcome to the stranger. These are what bind us as nation where the things
that count are more than just what can be counted. And that, it seems to me, is
the Parable of the Northern Seed.
Thought for the Day - 0720 Mon 10 March 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
[Listen
to it here]
Good Morning
In Aberdeen tomorrow there’s going to
be a gathering of some fifty organisations concerned about the state of
Scotland’s fishing communities. Fishing means a lot to me. When I was a boy on
Lewis, the old men would take us out in their boats. We’d let down hand lines
baited with mussels and usually pull in a good haul of ‘haddies’ and whiting. As
we shared them out in the village we learned the meaning of community. It was a
well-mentored rite of passage for us young men into the responsibilities of
adult life.
But much of that came to an end in
the 1970s. Technical developments and political trade-offs changed fishing from
a way of life to a capital intensive industry. The resource was steadily ruined
and fishing communities died from within.
Tomorrow’s conference has been
organised by the Economic and Social Research Council. It aims to help the
Scottish Government explore ways of re-kindling fishing communities. Past
polices have treated fishing just like any other industry. But it’s not just
another industry. It’s a whole way of life based on the relationship between
people and a wild natural resource. It’s about community in the fullest sense
because it integrates marine biology with economics, culture and even
spirituality. Fishing teaches us that everything is interconnected. You can’t
pull on just one loop of a tangled hand line without finding it joined to all
the other loops.
The Aberdeen conference will report
back to St Andrew’s House. The outer doors of that building bear an inscription.
It says, “And I will make you fishers of men.” And there’s the answer to saving
Scotland’s fishing communities. It needs to be about people, and their being
empowered to take responsibility for their own resources. In other words, it’s
like land reform, but for the sea.
(Information on the ESRC and
Scottish Government conference, Change and Continuity in Scotland's Fishing
Communities and the conference papers (posted from Tue 11th March) can be found
via this link.)
Thought for the Day - 0720 Fri 1
February 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good
Morning
It must have been disturbing for
people on that Air Canada flight to Heathrow this week when the co-pilot had to
be restrained by his colleagues and forced off the flight deck while yelling out
that he wanted to … ‘talk to God.’ Apparently he’s now in a psychiatric hospital
with his wife looking after him, and the airline has responded in a very
level-headed way, saying that: ‘The captain and crew followed correct
operational procedures when the co-pilot fell ill.’
Well that’s all very reassuring, but
the story raises wider questions about religion, questions that account for the
fervid headlines in many of the hundred and eighty three newspaper reports of
what happened that can be found on the internet. You can just imagine Professor
Richard Dawkins rubbing his hands at yet another crazy case study of what he
calls ‘the God delusion.’ And it was the philosopher Bertrand Russell who said
that, from a scientific point of view, we can make no distinction between the
man who drinks much and sees snakes, and the one who eats little, and sees God.
Indeed, God gets a bad press, and
there’s maybe a good reason for that. As I once heard a priest say, ‘God gets
what man rejects.’ God gets the poor, the broken, the lonely hearts and the
mentally ill. None of that belittles the seriousness of what happened on Air
Canada Flight 848. But it does raise the consideration that if people are at
their wits end, then maybe it’s not surprising if they issue the Mayday call of
last recourse and send out an S.O.S. to the ground of their deepest being.
This morning a Canadian airline pilot
is under recovery, and God, yet again, is back in the dock. What’s your verdict
going to be? Are you going to condemn God? Or will you, like God, send out your
heart in solidarity with those who suffer?
26. Thought for the Day - 0720 Fri 25
January 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning
The BBC website has a page that tells
you which news stories get the most hits, and top of the league on Tuesday was
one with the heading, “‘Cruel’ taxi fare dodger hunted.”
Seemingly a guy with a Scottish
accent had got into a Newcastle cab and gone all the way to central Scotland. It
was the festive season and the driver trusted the customer’s sob story that he’d
be able to get the £200 fare on arrival, but instead the man ran off.
As Inspector Paul Fleming of Central
Scotland Police said: “This was a cruel act to play on somebody who was trying
to make an honest living and who is now considerably out of pocket.”
As cruel acts go it’s hardly in the
bigtime league. It was a commonplace con, yet it sparked many people’s
indignation. It certainly did so mine, and for two reasons.
First, as Inspector Fleming said:
it’s the meanness of cheating a person who serves society through an honest
job. But on top of that, here we are in Burns Week. We’re celebrating Scotland’s
generosity of spirit and somebody amongst our number has given a trusting
English cabbie cause to think the worst of us!
It damages the reputation of the
Scottish people, and as Robert Burns said in his Paraphrase of the First
Psalm:
For why? that God the good
adore,
Hath giv’n them peace and
rest,
But hath decreed that wicked
men
Shall ne’er be truly blest.
Well, it’s no good just moaning about
insults to the national dignity but whenever I hear a story like this it really
rankles me. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I get a modest fee for
presenting Thought for the Day. It’s only a fraction of the unpaid taxi fare,
but today that’s being offered to the cheated driver from Newcastle. It might at
least buy him a good dram when he comes off duty … and may the spirit of Robert
Burns endure, for with it Scotland is truly blest.
(For the story and Inspector
Fleming's contact number see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7201996.stm ).
25.
Thought for the Day - 0720 Tue 27 Nov 2007 - BBC Radio Scotland
Well, the long dark nights have
arrived, and as nature settles to rest so we, too, have the opportunity to shift
from outer busyness and rekindle our inner lives.
Our ancient forebears held their
bardic schools and ceilidhs during winter. They knew that poetry and music
inspires the people and renews the community. That’s why I’m thrilled that
Scotland is to mark the next two months as a Winter Festival. It starts this
Friday on St Andrew’s Day and finishes with “Burns season at the end of January”
– which, of course, brings it up to St Bride’s or Brigid’s Eve, and the
symbolism of returning light with spring’s new hope.
When announcing the Winter Festival,
First Minister, Alex Salmond, spoke of St Andrew’s Day as “a chance to enjoy the
multi-cultural Scotland we have become.”
So what does St Andrew stand for? If
we accept the Biblical version, he must have been into welfare, for he played a
pivotal role in feeding the five thousand. He also arranged for visiting
“Greeks” to meet with Jesus, which suggests interfaith dialogue.
The idea that Andrew died on an
X-shaped cross comes from early Christian traditions. These say he was put to
death for persuading Roman soldiers to disarm, and for helping a woman to say
“no” to repeated sexual exploitation by her drunken husband.
We can dismiss these stories, but if
we do, we lose the spiritual importance that Andrew, the “fisher of men,” still
holds for a modern nation. For me, his Saltire symbolises the sharing of plenty,
welcome to the stranger, nonviolence, the rights of women … and now, dare I say
it, the start of a Winter Festival that squeezes every last drop out of Rabbie
Burns’ revelry until St Bride returns the light of spring in the turning of the
seasons once again.
[For
sources, see: “Saint Andrew: Non-violence & National Identity”,
Theology in Scotland, 2000, online at
http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2000-theology-in-scotland-andrew.pdf
]
24. Thought
for the Day - 0720 Tue 30 Oct 2007 - BBC Radio Scotland
This Thought can be listened to
at this link.
And to hear a Sally Magnusson BBC Radio Scotland interview with Ewen from
7-10-07 click
here.
Good Morning ... The continuing
crisis in Burma has dropped off our front pages recently, but the protests seem
to have had some effect. In a remarkable development last week, Aung San Suu Kyi,
the pro-democracy leader, was shown on state television meeting with a
government minister. This Thursday the City of Glasgow is expected to confer its
freedom upon her, but individuals have also strikingly expressed their
solidarity.
A month ago I was contacted by an
Edinburgh teacher by the name of
Ewen Hardie. He’s a former student of mine and
he’d been shaken by the events unfolding in Burma. Ever since I’ve know Ewan
he’d worn dreadlocks. But now, as an act of witness in solidarity with the
monks, he’d shaved them off. What’s more, he’d discarded his shoes, and pledged
to carry on bald and barefoot until it either threatens his health or democracy
comes to Burma.
Last week the story was picked up on
by an
Edinburgh newspaper. It has one of those websites where readers post their
comments. Some people dismissed Ewen’s protest as “completely pointless” - “a
disgrace” that sets “a very bad example … to the youngsters” at his school. The
youngsters themselves seemed to think otherwise, and somebody drew parallels
with Gandhi, pointing out that “personal sacrifice lies at the heart of all
successful civil rights campaigns.”
But most telling of all was a
response in broken English by
Aung Naing - a Burmese refugee in Sydney who suffered under the
dictatorship.
He said, “I would like to mention my
great thanks to Mr Hardie on behalf of Burmese pro-democracy ordinary people,
regardless of how long he can hold his pledge…. It impacts a great support to
the people who are … imprisoned and tortured in this moment.”
Violence works by torture, fear and
killing. But nonviolence is the power of love that comes from courage in the
heart. We might dismiss the monks in Burma, Ewen Hardie in Edinburgh and even
the city councillors of Glasgow as hopeless dreamers. But if we do, it is the
spiritual power of witness in solidarity that we dismiss, and without that,
there would be no hope for freedom.
23. Thought for
the Day - 0720 Thu 2 August 2007 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning … and if I
might try saying it in the Gaelic, madainn mhath … because my attention
was caught this week by a story from the Isle of Lewis - about something that
used to be totally ordinary: a mobile grocery shop.
It seems that after 44
years on the road, Murdo and Norman Macleod have finally decided to retire from
rising early every morning to take essential supplies round the villages.
And essential they
certainly were! There were several such vans in business when I was a boy
growing up in Lewis, and I well remember the excitement when one would stop near
Leurbost School, and we’d all run out for penny toffees and gobstoppers.
We’d fidget in the queue
as the driver made sure that every housewife wanting tea or bacon, and every old
bodach after his tin of tobacco, was properly given the time of day in
passing on the island’s news.
This was no
depersonalised retail therapy of mass consumerism. Instead, these grocery vans
embodied the flesh and blood relationships of real people in a real place who
knew the secret of finding happiness in service to one another.
That’s why the retiring
van driver, Norman Macleod, could say this week that he’d loved his work, and
had a great relationship with his customers because, as he told the press, “they
are the greatest people on Earth.”
We live in an era of
brash celebrity where bigger is better. The arts of marketing may fill our lives
with things, but they can never give us one another.
What so touched me in
this Parable of the Grocer’s Van was the honest-to-God dignity of ordinary
people doing ordinary jobs but with an extraordinary attitude. That’s what
transforms the commonplace. And that’s the love that infuses the sacred into
everyday life.
The prophet Micah said
this doesn’t take rocket science. “Here is what the Lord would require of
you,” he said: “to act justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
your God”.
22. Thought
for the Day - 0720 Fri 20 July 2007 - BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning
There’s a passage near
the end of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina where the hero, Levin, meets a peasant who
contrasts two different types of men.
One type “just stuffs
his belly” and “lives for his own needs”. The other “lives for the soul”
because, the peasant says, he “remembers God.”
“How’s that?” asks
Levin, who’s searching for the meaning of life.
“Everybody knows how -”
replies the peasant. “By the truth, by God’s way.”
And as Levin takes his
leave the peasant’s words grow on him. He senses that this honest insistence on
truth challenges worldly wisdom. The reasoning powers of the world are often
proud and even stupid precisely because they render truth negotiable.
This past week the BBC
launched an inquiry into fake phone-in competition results. The director-general
said something very interesting. He said, “A group of people has taken it upon
themselves to keep the programme on the air by what they might have regarded at
the time as a white lie” – and he went on to condemn such behaviour as totally
unacceptable.
Yet, it’s not difficult
to understand how easy it must have been for hard-pressed staff to take short
cuts. We all live in a society where so-called “little white lies” often
lubricate social reality. Lying is almost normalised, as when the secretary says
that the boss is “out” when they’re simply busy. And yet, each little white lie
distorts the surrounding social fabric. That’s the problem - the “little” is
deceptive because it panders to a fear of telling the truth.
The stushie at the BBC
is bigger than just the misdeeds of a few employees or sub-contractors. It’s
about us - all of us - and the world we live in. Maybe every one of us who has
told white lies needs to own a share in the BBC’s embarrassment. Compromising
truth is a slippery slope. As Tolstoy’s Levin discovered, there is no
alternative; none, but “living for the soul, by the truth.”
21. Thought for the Day - 0725 Tues 12 June 2007 -
BBC Radio Scotland
Good Morning,
In a couple of
minutes I’ll be leaving Glasgow and heading North for celebrations on the Isle
of Eigg. It’s exactly a decade since seven generations of landlordism there
came to an end. Ten thousand donations from around the world brought the island
into community ownership, and a sea change rolled in to Scotland.
I vividly remember
how a journalist asked a farmer’s wife what it felt like. “Yesterday,” she
replied, “I had a house, but today, I have a home.”
And for me, that
sums up the importance of Scotland’s land reform. It deepens people’s sense of
belonging. It gives folks something to take responsibility for, and that
stimulates businesses, social housing and nature conservation – all of which
strengthen a sense of community of place.
Ten years ago in a
marquee symbolically pitched on the ex-laird’s tennis court, Brian Wilson, then
an MP, got up and declared “game set and match to the people of Eigg!” He also
announced setting up the Community Land Unit within Highlands and Islands
Enterprise. So far this has helped over 150 communities to bring a third of a
million acres under their control – and that’s an amazing two percent of the
entire Scottish land mass!
But as Eigg
celebrates, let’s also remember Scotland’s pioneering Victorian land reformers –
Mary MacPherson, John Murdoch and the Reverend Donald MacCallum - to name but
three.
They understood
that land is about more than just agriculture or economics. It’s also a bond
that is psychological, cultural and even spiritual. As the Bible puts it, “The
profit of the Earth is for all,” and as Dougie Maclean sings, “You cannot own
the land; the land owns you.”*
That’s the
historical character of Scotland’s land reform, and I do believe we need that
spiritual depth just as much for the future - or else, quite literally, we’d
risk - losing the plot.
[* Ecclesiastes 5:9 in the King James
(Authorised) Version; Dougie MacLean, Solid Ground]
20.
Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland - 0727, Wednesday 30 May 2007
Good Morning,
I’m sure that all of us
have felt haunted this past month at what Kate and Gerry McCann must be going
through in searching for Madeleine, their abducted four-year-old daughter. This
kind of tragedy robs every parent of peace of mind. It challenges the whole of
society as to how we can protect children without mollycoddling them.
Probably the first
reaction of many parents on hearing about Madeleine was to think what folly it
was to have left children alone in a hotel room. Well, it’s easy in such awful
situations to put the head before the heart and leap to judgements.
But I’d be surprised if
most of us didn’t then start, with the benefit of hindsight, to reflect on the
things we’ve done in life. Things that, but for the Grace of God, we might not
have got away with.
I can remember times
with my own children when, if the unthinkable had happened, I might have
struggled to forgive myself. And if we think of those of us who drive cars, I
just wonder how many can honestly say that there’s never been a time when a
careless manoeuvre combined with bad luck might not have resulted in blood on
the road and a shameful summons at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
Today Kate and Gerry
McCann hope to have an audience with the Pope.
If what they told the
BBC last week is anything to go by, they’ll probably tell him that ‘no-one will
ever feel as guilty as we do.’
I’m not a Roman
Catholic, but I do wonder what the Holy Father might find in his heart to reply.
And I know what I’d love to hear him say.
I’d love to hear him
reassure them that the sacred heart of Jesus is always open.
That forgiveness goes
without saying – it’s what the Christian vision is meant to be about - and so,
walk on with faith into the journey of the rest of your lives.
And that bad things
happen to good people in this world because God gives everyone the choice of
good or evil. It has to be that way so that our love can grow in freedom.
But God’s own love will
never let your child go.
Nor you.
That’s what I’d delight
to hear the Pope telling the McCann’s today.
19. Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland
- 0727, Thursday 24 May 2007
Good Morning
Last night BP broke the
news that owing, it said, to Westminster procrastination on funding, it is to
abandon the pioneering proposed Peterhead power plant. This would have returned
waste carbon dioxide back underground, thereby fighting global warming. Over
millions of years, the Earth stored up carbon as fossil fuels and limestone.
Such geology tamed the climate by creating an atmosphere that supports advanced
life. But when we release carbon by burning fuel in power stations, or
industrial processes like cement-making, we upset the balance of nature.
BP say they’re
disappointed, but let me tell you a good news story from another industry - the
cement sector –that accounts for some five percent of total carbon dioxide
emissions. Some years ago I was amongst the many Scottish people and
organisations that locked horns with Lafarge, the biggest stone and cement
company in the world. They wanted a so-called “superquarry” in the National
Scenic Area of South Harris - but we saw them off.
However, for me that
wasn’t the end. Lafarge came back and said, “It’s all very well to criticise,
but on average each person uses ten tonnes of quarry products a year. Will you
help us to think about minimising the impact of this?”
We all have to own up to
using corporate products in our daily lives, and so I became an uneasy, albeit
unpaid, member of their Sustainability Stakeholders Panel that offers
environmental advice. And I’ve watched how they’ve reduced carbon dioxide
emissions by 14% per tonne of cement from 1990 levels.
I have to admit that my
“auld enemy” has earned some grudging respect. This week they even became the
only construction materials company to achieve a top forty FTSE4Good listing by
the Financial Times for best European environmental practice. That won’t save
the world, but it’s better than doing nothing, and it forces competitors to wake
up.
Frankly, I despair at
decisions like abandoning the Peterhead power plant. But when I do see financial
resources being mobilised for change as with the cement industry, it at least
gives a glimmer of hope for the human condition.
(For reports on my terms of reference and
engagement with the Lafarge panel,
click
here)
18. Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland
- 0727, Thursday 17 May 2007
… from Alastair McIntosh, a Quaker
and Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology at Strathclyde University.
[This piece can be
listened to here
... albeit at rather a cracking speed!].
Good Morning.
As Alex Salmond became Scotland’s
First Minister yesterday, Labour’s Ewan Aitken of Edinburgh Council spoke of a
“new political reality” that seeks “common purpose and agreement” for the
greater good.
But how do you do that? I was in
Southern Ireland last week and it was amazing to see the warmth with which their
press hailed Mr Paisley as “Big Ian”. And I remembered how, six years ago, my
wife and I had taken our students of human ecology to Ulster.
After a day on the Garvaghy Road
visiting Catholic groups eloquent with hospitality, we went to the Portadown
Orange Lodge.
The atmosphere there was awkward. It
was difficult for our contemporary students to grasp the religious worldview of
the two senior Orangemen who had generously given up their evening. But then a
historical key turned.
“You know, folks,” I said. “Our hosts
are rooted in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion – a book
described as ‘the seedbed of democracy.’ Whether we agree or not, these
men understand Presbyterianism as the root of political freedoms that we now all
take for granted.”
It was like an emotional dam burst
open. The Orangemen smiled and stretched out their legs. We even ventured a
joke, asking how come such resolute egalitarians have such fancy titles as grand
masters of grand lodges … and everybody laughed.
They could see that we were now
seeing their humanity from within and not just as caricatures projected from the
outside.
And that’s what a politics of respect
does. It gets to the heart of the matter through engaging with the heart. It
challenges, yet honours that which is great in the other.
As a Quaker, I move with a spiritual
tradition that has done consensual decision making for nearly four centuries.
What makes it work is discernment – reaching beyond ego and vested
interests for the spirit of truth and right action. You don’t try to agree on
everything at once. Just seek out points of unity from which to build trust. And
who knows, if even Gerry Adams and Big Ian can achieve such a new politics,
hopefully Scotland can too.
17.
Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland & BBC Radio Ulster - 1 December
2006
This
"Thought" was part of a special Radio Scotland tie in with Radio
Ulster, and was broadcast over both networks. The text in Green
was added to the Northern Irish version, as it is longer... . from
Alastair McIntosh, a Quaker, Visiting Professor of Human Ecology at
Strathclyde
University
and guest lecturer in Leadership for Sustainable Development at
Queens
University
,
Belfast
.
Good
Morning
One
of my hats is treasurer to the GalGael Trust based in Glasgow's suipbuilding
area of Govan. Set up by local unemployed people, the GalGael helps
folks to reclaim pride in heritage, to discover beauty in the natural
environment, and to celebrate community.
Over
the past decade we’ve developed training in a vast range of traditional skills
– wood carving, weaving, silversmithing and even boat building. Many of our
participants received poverty as their birthrite, but there’s still an inbuilt
“buoyancy of the human soul” that enables even the most damaged human being
to bounce back.
Returning
from a GalGael day-trip recently an adult woman wept in the minibus. Why? Because
her childhood dream had just been fulfilled – to see
Loch Lomond
. But GalGael’s most daunting journey was when Down District Council in
Ulster
invited our crew to the Magnus Barelegs Festival. They crossed the Irish Sea in
boat they’d built from windblown timber out of
Glasgow
city parks. What a thrill when our “urban clansmen” beat off even the
Northern Irish police rowing team, and sailed triumphantly home with the trophy!
It
was exhilarating for them to see the River Clyde opening out onto the
Irish Sea
. For the first time they saw these waters not as a source of division, but as a
superhighway, that once united our peoples. And what hospitality was shared! As
Colin Macleod, the GalGael’s founder said, “We got a real sense of how
spirited the ceilidhs must've been when the clans of
Ireland
and clans of
Scotland
visited each other by travelling the same route.”
There’s
a Celtic proverb that says “The bonds of milk are stronger than the bonds of
blood.” What counts most is not our lineage, race or even religion, but
whether the milk of human kindness courses in our veins.
Recently
I went to the Isle of Iona and sat in St Oran’s Chapel, where an altar candle
shines constantly southwards through a window facing
Ireland
. And in reading Adomnan’s 7th century Life of Saint Columba, I noted that our Irish-Scottish missionary had once blessed a pauper for sharing
what little he had, but admonished a wealthy miser who, in the words Adomnan
attributes to Columba, had “rejected Christ in pilgrim visitors.”
That’s
the only religion that can unite us – the religion of kindness. That’s
what can heal the scars of historic division and it’s a sacred gift to us all.
16.
Thought
for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland - 13 November 2006
Good
Morning
Another
Remembrance Day has passed - yet another grim November’s reminder that, for
some, the winds of loss forever blow a lonely course. Back in the 1991 war in
the Persian Gulf, a BBC reporter put a question to Gabriel Habib, leader of the
Middle East Council of Churches.
“Which
side of the war is God on?” the reporter asked.
“God,”
said Mr Habib, “is on the side of the suffering.” Always, on the side of
those who suffer.
This
year’s Remembrance Day with further loss of life on both sides in Iraq left me with a deepening sense of foreboding. Largely
gone is the optimism of when
the Berlin Wall came down with talk of a "peace dividend." Instead, we see renewed nuclear
tensions and the fear of terror at many of our airports.
It
feels a bit as if the world is in the grip of powers that are greater than our
capacity to deal with. It’s as if our humanity itself is being put to the
test. Whether it’s war or new threats like climate change, it’s hard to see
ready solutions, and I for one have no easy answers.
But
I am touched by one thing. The Islamic, Jewish and Christian traditions all
teach that despair is a sin. We may not have a quick fix, but we can at least
kindle an attitude that holds open the doors of hope and dignity. There is only
one antidote to despair, and that comes from the human heart. By opening the
heart in our daily lives each one of us can play our part.
The
French Jesuit priest and scientist, Teilhard de Chardin, saw such transformation
as nothing less than the next step in human evolution. “Some day… ,” he
said, in words that rebuke despair: “Some day after we have mastered the wind,
the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of
Love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have
discovered fire.”
15.
Thought
for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland - 25 September 2006
Good
Morning
In
the past week Hungary has been rocked by its Prime Minister’s disclosure that
his party lied to get elected. Meanwhile, our own politicians hammer out
policies at their various party conferences, but I have to confess a certain
sympathy with the challenges they face in trying to reconcile electoral demands
with the ability to deliver.
I’m
reminded of one of those stories where a famous politician dies and goes up to
the Pearly Gates, only to meet St Peter and the Devil.
St
Peter tells him, “We’re going let you make up your own mind where you go,”
and he presses a button so the politician gets to see a preview of himself
sitting on a cloud, playing a harp for all eternity.
“Hmmm,”
he thinks. “… but it could be a little boring. Maybe I’ll just see what
the other chap’s offering.”
And
so the Devil shows him a land of sumptuous restaurants, fabulous theatres and
casinos where everyone wins.
The
politician’s eyes light up, and before he can even speak his thoughts two
demons drag him downstairs and hurl him into the Lake of Fire.
Later
on the Devil passes by. "Excuse me," the politician cries out,
"But I thought you promised sumptuous restaurants, fabulous theatres,
and….”
"Ah
yes," says the Devil, "But that's when I was, campaigning."
…
Of course, it’s an old joke, but it’s worth asking: why are we so vulnerable
to campaigning promises? Is it possible that, like the politician with the
Devil, most of us have learned to sit a little too comfortably with lies,
because they may seem to comfort us?
If
we want our politicians’ integrity to be able to shine through, maybe we, the
electorate, need to examine our integrity too. Maybe we need to work on building
a culture where truth is more the norm.
And
that starts not in the realm of national politics, but with the intricate
relationships of our everyday lives.
14.
Thought
for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland - 5 September 2006
Good
Morning ...
It’s
been a sombre few days as Britain comes to terms with its heaviest military
casualties since the Falklands. I find myself looking at the lost men’s
pictures and seeing, in each one of them, the profound humanity of somebody’s
son, somebody’s father, somebody’s lover.
It
might seem strange, but as a Quaker and therefore an active pacifist, I annually
guest lecture at Britain’s foremost military staff college.
Over
9 years I’ve addressed more than 3,000 senior officers. Generally we agree on
being willing to die for our values; the debate is whether also to kill for
them.
I
can tell you that most of these men and women are not warmongers. They too see
peace as their business. I carry with me a little card that the Army gave me
which lists their Core Values: “Loyalty – Courage – Integrity –
Discipline – Respect for Others – and, Selfless Commitment”.
These
were the values of those the nation grieves today.
I
once asked a general why they let me loose on their campus, and he said, “You
make us think.” It’s not rocket science, but I seek to uncover the roots of
conflict, and that means
exploring how issues like poverty, prejudice, and being unloved all feed into
wider patterns of violence.
Spirituality
then becomes important, because it is about the antidote - about love. In most
world religions, love implies that human beings are profoundly interconnected,
and that interconnection is the wellspring of community and its regeneration.
That’s
why I find hope in a conference organised today in Glasgow by Communities
Scotland, an agency of the Scottish Executive. Leading politicians and
activists are to explore the idea that spiritual values can shed fresh
light on urban and rural regeneration.
I
believe that such innovate thinking at home can have knock-on effects much
further afield. I’m left moved by the deaths in Afghanistan this past week,
but proud to see Communities Scotland striking a light in the darkness.
13.
Thought
for the Day - BBC Radio Scotland - 1 August 2006
Good Morning ...
My youth was during
the Vietnam era, and I have to confess that as a hawkish young man I found war
rather exciting. I remember going to Aberdeen University and seeing a poster
that said, “War is not good for children and other living things,” and it
irritated me for its naivety.
But there were
rather a lot of posters like this, and, worked on by my valiant if
few-and-far-between girlfriends, I gradually started to think in new ways that
chipped away at the armour round my heart.
One of the most
influential poster voices was a Brazilian archbishop called Helder Camara.
He’d come out with things like - why is it that “When I give food to the
poor they call me a saint. [But] when I ask why the poor have no food they call
me a communist.”
I wonder how many
of today’s politicians realise that when talking about the “spiral of
violence” in the Middle East, they’re drawing on Camara, who published a
little book by that name in 1971?
He observed that
violence builds up at three levels in a society. Primary violence is the
everyday effect of structurally ingrained social injustice. This generates
secondary violence - the revolt of the oppressed. And that in turn provokes
tertiary violence - repression by the powerful to secure their privileged
position. And so the spiral of violence tightens.
After years of
being out of print, Archbishop
Camara’s little book is now going on the web. It
culminates with an “appeal to youth”, saying that wars happen because of the
egotism of adults, and he urges the youth to, “provoke discussions [and] force
people to think and take up a position: let it be uncomfortable, like truth,
demanding, like justice.”
Whether Lebanese or Israeli, war is not good for
children and other living things, and the children are always innocent.
Camara’s last word is for them: “With you I must remain young in my soul,”
he said, “and keep the hope and love I need to help all humanity.”
(Dom Hélder Câmara's text, Spiral of Violence,
can be downloaded from this link).
12.
Thought
for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, Tue 25 July 2006
Good Morning
...
I read yesterday
that the British Army have told soldiers to limit bagpipe playing to under half
an hour because it’s as bad as a chainsaw for the hearing.
My own ears always
pep up at such reports because I’ve had impaired hearing for the past 5 years.
It’s probably genetic, though I’d rather add it up to a misspent youth on
Stornoway’s disco scene. Whatever the cause, hearing loss is affecting people
in growing numbers. According to the General Household Survey, 20% of men and
15% of women report difficulties in later middle age.
In Scotland we’re
blessed by state-of-the-art NHS audiologists. My own consultant is himself in a
wheelchair, and I asked him which he’d prefer: to have a hearing or a mobility
issue. He said, “mobility”, because as Helen Keller who became both blind
and deaf put it, “Blindness cuts you off from things; [but] deafness cuts you
off from people.”
That’s the
galling bit. For me, diminished hearing is a social disability. Mind you,
it can have an amusing side. I remember once lecturing to a church group and
being asked a question by a man who introduced himself as a “bigamist.” I
answered as delicately as I could, only to have him loudly declare: “I
said I’m a botanist!”
You can never fully
correct permanent hearing loss, but modern digital hearing aids do a pretty
amazing job. When I first got mine my biggest obstacle was embarrassment. Would
people stare? Would my wife still fancy me as much? But then I realised I just
had to rise above such self-consciousness. I needed to think of these new attachments as
being like spectacles, but for the ears rather than the eyes.
Thankfully, hearing
loss can never destroy your sense of humour! The story’s told that towards the
end of his life an increasingly deaf Winston Churchill revisited the House of
Commons.
"They say
he's potty," murmured one MP.
Replied Churchill: "And they say he
can't hear either!"
11.
Thought
for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, Tue 18 July 2006
Good Morning ...
In yesterday's Thought for the
Day, Bob Kernohan asked what we individuals can do about the crisis in the
Middle East, and he ended with the quotation, "Ask not to see the
distant scene; one step enough for me."
There's something about conflicts in the Middle East that touches most of us
very deeply. We know they can hit us in the pocket as some petrol prices
touch a pound a litre. But there's also something much deeper. As the poet,
John Donne, put it, "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee."
The Middle East has been called "the Cradle of Civilisation" and
for many people in the West, it symbolises the cultural heart of the world.
It was the mythical home of Eden, yes, but also of Armageddon. Conflict
there spills out from such countries as Lebanon, Israel and Iraq and into
our own hearts.
That's why, as Bob Kernohan suggested, it matters to take steps within our
own lives. For me, violence in the world is like a jigsaw. Consciously or
unconsciously we all carry the pieces. If you and I can start dealing with
our complicity in it, then we help to improve the whole picture.
Recently I saw a conflict between two recovering heroin addicts in a
hard-pressed quarter of one of our Scottish cities. They'd been set against
one another by malicious circumstances and one understandably became so
inflamed by the spirit of violence that he procured the means to do
something terrible to the other.
But then a wonderful thing happened. Little by little, he softened his anger
with a counter-balancing spirit of restraint. At first he was only able to
postpone doing his damnednest on an hour-by-hour basis. But gradually, these
little steps got longer, and now both men have made it up with neither going
to jail nor hospital.
If ordinary people can find the strength to resolve potentially murderous
violence, is there not hope for us all? The Cradle of Civilisation in the
Middle East may be engulfed in strife, but that doesn't mean we should lose
faith in humanity.
10. Thought
for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, Fri 30 June 2006
Good Morning
....
A
strange thing happened last week. I became temporarily mistaken for a football
fan! It was in the columns of that wonderful community newspaper, the Stornoway
Gazette, and somebody had written in having a go at me for supposedly attacking
Jack McConnell’s lack of support for the English football team.
As it happens, the
letter writer had muddled me up with somebody else, and they’ve now graciously
apologised. But for a few days, I felt myself uncomfortably thrust into a debate
that normally holds no interest for me. You see, I was useless at football in
school and spectator sports are just not my religion. Even though I live close
enough to Ibrox to hear the cheers go up, I rarely have a clue who’s playing.
But the experience of
being publicly mistaken for an English supporter last week set me thinking about
the passion that the game generates. For those of us who lack the fans’ gene,
it’s easy just to dismiss it all as crowd madness or sublimated aggression.
But ask football supporters what really matters to them, and some very
positive human values emerge: ones that speak powerfully to the need we all have
for a sense of identity, a place of belonging, a focus for loyalty, and, in a
nutshell, community.
Most of us today live
in a world where our anchors of community have dragged. We have fewer and fewer
shared experiences out of which to forge a group identity. But football
seems to offer this, and perhaps that’s something it can teach those of us who
aren’t its natural fans.
Maybe in all walks
of life the name of the big game is to learn how to stand our ground and support
our own side, yes, but also to keep the heart open with some empathy for the
other side too. After all, they’re only expressing the same needs and values
as we have.
For humanity to shine through we have to become big
enough to respect our opponents. That’s the measure of our greatness,
and it’s the measure of any nation too.
9.
Thought
for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, Mon 8 May 2006
Good
morning ....
....
and with power struggles rocking the world of politics one thing we can
be sure of is that conflict will dominate this week’s headlines.
And
that’s not just in the big scheme of things. Few of us will escape conflict in
our own homes, schools and offices. Indeed, the big political fights are
probably rooted in the fact that any fool can live in conflict, but it takes
guts to live in peace.
I’m
especially interested in Scottish communities undergoing land reform -
to achieve security of tenure, for cultural cohesion and economic
development. Type “land reform” into the internet and we’re the first
country to come up, even ahead of Zimbabwe! That’s because a quarter of a
million acres of Scotland have now been taken into community ownership, and
it’s happened bloodlessly!
But
there’s a downside to such freedom. Some communities rightly worry that land
reform may lift the lid on simmering local troubles. And that’s why conflict
resolution skills need to be put at the heart of community empowerment.
The
first and most liberating fact about community conflict is that it’s normal
– provided it’s not just for the sake of stirring things up it’s a healthy
sign of folks finding their voices.
Conflict
becomes most toxic when it has stagnated – going unrecognised or left
unprocessed. That’s when it turns to corrosive hostility – more the
withering hand of passive aggression than the open fist.
And
this is why everyone who cares about other people must acquire the courage to
sit fearlessly in the fire of conflict! We must insist on exposure to truth and
to a no-nonsense empathy that’s gives real meaning to trying to love one’s
neighbour.
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